Two-peats, three-peats and two-steps toward playoff
By CARL DUBOIS
cdubois@theadvocate.com
Advocate sportswriter
Congratulations to Texas for its Two-Peat. The Longhorns beat the Southern California Trojans 41-38 late Wednesday in the Rose Bowl, the BCS national championship game.
That's two consecutive Rose Bowl victories for Texas, which should seize the opportunity to bill itself as repeat national champion.
Marketing is everything, you know. USC (and ABC and its sister network, ESPN) taught us in 2003 that the Rose Bowl can be the national championship game, even when it's not, if enough people decide it is. Go for it, 'Horns. Hook 'em if you can.
That's how USC entered Wednesday's game on a quest for what everybody called a Three-Peat (or a Three-Pete, for USC coach Pete Carroll).
Do the math, comedian and USC fan Will Ferrell said during ABC's pregame show. The Trojans are playing in their third national championship game in three years, he said.
Tell that to LSU, which has the ADT trophy, the crystal football signifying the BCS national championship for the 2003 season.
Nick Saban held one aloft after the 2004 Nokia Sugar Bowl.
Pete Carroll held one aloft after the 2005 Fed-Ex Orange Bowl.
Mack Brown held one aloft after the 2006 Rose Bowl Presented by Keith Jackson.
Anybody see a repeat in there?
It's old news to remind you that every major conference in the country agreed to take the human element out of it as much as possible by following a system that picks two teams to play for Division I-A college football's national championship.
Carroll liked the system in 2003 before LSU passed USC in the standings and won the right to play and beat Oklahoma for the national championship. Before LSU made that jump, Saban said he would respect the system whatever the outcome.
Carroll changed his tune, declaring the 2004 Rose Bowl the national championship game. Jackson bought the hype and billed the game accordingly, despite the fact nobody in America suggested that a Michigan victory over the Trojans in that game would earn Michigan a national title.
USC quarterback Matt Leinart wore a T-shirt ripping the BCS with a thinly veiled obscenity, but he and Carroll embraced the system when the Trojans won the 2004 version of the BCS national championship.
After USC lost Wednesday to Texas, Leinart insisted the Trojans have the better team. Following USC's logic, that means the Trojans got their Three-Peat after all, because it's all about declaring yourself the best whether or not things fall your way.
So, for the second time in three seasons, the "best team in college football history" -- Oklahoma in 2003, USC in 2005 -- bit the dust in the only national championship game agreed upon before the season by the major conferences.
After the fact, it's a free-for-all to declare your team the best. That's why Texas needs to remind everyone it has consecutive victories in the Rose Bowl, the game for all the marbles if you want it to be.
Meanwhile, LSU should guard its ADT trophy jealously, perhaps with an ADT security system. One day, it might be the only proof the Tigers won a national championship.
All of the crazy talk -- a Three-Peat, a Three-Pete, a Two-and-a-half-Peat and Will Ferrell's USC math -- overshadowed what was one of the best games in college football history, featuring one of the best individual performances in college football history (by Texas quarterback Vince Young) and played on, as we were told, the best playing surface in Rose Bowl history.
Chris Fowler inspired ESPN to spend the last few weeks pitting USC against the best teams of all time in virtual matchups, hoping to help people determine whether the Trojans were the best team in college football history: USC 2005 vs. Nebraska 1995, USC 2005 vs. Miami 2001, USC 2005 vs. USC 1978 and so forth.
Perhaps ESPN (and the Trojans) should have spent more time analyzing USC 2005 vs. Texas 2005.
The best thing about the media and coaches being revealed as flawed in their ability to evaluate teams as the best in college football history (or the best in the current season) is it's an increasing part of the slow but inevitable journey toward a playoff.
One day fans will look back in bewilderment that once upon a time the powers that be thought it was appropriate to do it any other way.
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